1238 On the Aborigines of the sub-Himalayas. [Dec 



origin. The sub-Himalayan races I have enumerated inhabit all the 

 central and temperate parts of these mountains, the juxta nivean or 

 northernmost tracts being left to the Rongbo vel Serpa ; and the south- 

 ernmost parts as well as the low valleys of the interior and central region, 

 being abandoned to the Denwars, Durres and other malaria defying 

 tribes which, for the present, I do not purpose to notice. The people 

 under review therefore may be said to occupy a highly healthful climate, 

 but one of exact temperatures as various as the several elevations (3 to 

 10,000 feet) of the ever varied surface; and which, though nowhere 

 troubled with excessive heat,* is so by excessive moisture, and by the 

 rank vegetation that moisture generates, with the aid of a deep fat soil, 

 save in the Cachar or juxta nivean region, where the lower temperature 

 and poorer scanter soil serve somewhat to break the prodigious transi- 

 tion from the thrice luxuriant sub-Himalayas to the thrice arid plains 

 of Tibet. 



That the sub-Himalayan races are all closely affiliated, and are all of 

 Tibetan origin, are facts long ago indicated by me, f and which seem 

 to result with sufficient evidence from the comparative vocabularies 

 now furnished. But to it lingual evidence in a more ample form will 

 however in due time be added, as well as the evidence deducible from 

 the physical attributes and from the creeds, customs and legends of 

 these races. It must suffice at present to observe that their legends 

 indicate a transit of the HimalayaJ from 35 to 45 generations back — 



* In the great valley which has a very central position and a mean elevation of 4500 

 feet, the maximum of Farh. in the shade is 80°. 



f Illustrations of the languages, &c. of Nepal and Tibet. 



X The vast limitary range of snows to the North of India has been known in all ages 

 by names derived entirely from Sanskrit, the Greeks and Romans neither coining fresh 

 appellations nor translating the sense of the Sanskrit ones into their own tongues, but 

 adopting almost unaltered the Sanskrit names they found. These are Hemachal, He- 

 ma-achal, snowy mountain. Hemadri, Hema-adri, the same. Hemalaya, Hema-alaya, 

 the place of snow. Hemodaya (unde Emodus) Hema-udaya, the source of snow, or 

 place of appearance of snow, as Suryudaya is the place of appearance of the Sun, that 

 is, the East. The following tables show first the relative heights of the 5 great Andean 

 and 1 1 em al ay an peaks, and second the position in physical Geography of the latter, which, 

 it will be observed, stretch all along the vast length of this stupendous range. 

 Andean Peaks. Hemalayan Peaks. 



Sorato, 25,400 Nanda Devi vel Juhar vel Ja- 



wahir, 25,749 



Jilimani, 24,350 Dhavala giri, 27 ; 0b0 



